meadowlarklogs | Do I look like the leader of this merry band of misfits?

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Do I look like the leader of this merry band of misfits?

WHO: Marian Hawke + you
WHERE: Fighting rings, dreams
WHEN: March 15ish-31stish
WHAT: Hawke living her life, beating people up, dreaming horrible things, the usual
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Body horror, loss of parent, terrorism, mass death, violence, woohoo

1. Fighting Rings, pre-and-post-dreams

[Mid-month, Hawke is having a grand time throwing herself time and time again into the fighting rings. She wins more than she loses, and while it'll take some time before she becomes a real name, it's growing by the fight. It's not just that she wins, it's that even when she loses she makes it an interesting experience to watch. She's fast and witty, often making snide remarks even when punched in the face, and it gets people's attention.

Often after a match, she'll end up at the bar; if she's won, there will be people around her chatting and she chats amiably right back, and if she's lost, she'll make fun of herself to anyone who will listen as she wipes the blood and sweat off herself. Anyone who wants to come meet her or talk about fighting, she's welcoming.

Later toward the end of the month, after a few of these dreams have started to haunt her, she will start being more reckless and grimmer during fights. She will be ruthless, brutal, and come nearer to killing people than she probably should be, but stop in time. She's far less friendly and there's a darkness to her than before, often storming off without a word.]

2. The one good memory! The Hanged Man!

[The Hanged Man is a medieval-appearing tavern in the heart of Kirkwall that gets busy during the night with all kinds of warriors, mercenaries, and sometimes questionable thieves and assassins. But in that bar, everyone tries to calm their arses down. There's only an occasional bar fight, otherwise there's singing, dice and card playing, and general revelry.

The Champion's table is a particularly rowdy one. The group of misfits are often loud, mocking each other, and laughing. A lot of beer is put around and usually it's Varric telling a grand old story that the others are tearing apart. They're playing a game of Wicked Grace and Hawke gets up to go to the bar.

She's pulled up a pint of ale, in her typical clothes with her blades and armor strapped on, but otherwise casual. She watches them with a smile, comforted for now in watching instead of joining in.

3. Rest in Peace, Leandra Dreamscape - TW for parental death and body horror

[Hawke was frantic when she found out her mother was abducted by the hite-lily murderer, confronting the bastard in a place of his choosing. It wasn't a smart or safe plan, flying in there not knowing what came ahead of her, but it didn't matter. Gascard, who brought them there, betrayed the group and ended up with a crossbow in the throat to show for it. Varric and Anders flank Hawke in this memory, ready to help her at any cost, but none of them are prepared for what happens.

When Quentin reveals what happened to her mother, Hawke in this memory screams. Demons appear and she kills them, destroys everything in her path, covers the ground with the blood of anyone that gets in her way. After there's nothing left to kill, Leandra falls into her daughter's arms. A frankenstein creation of a woman now, she cannot survive, her body no longer animated with Quentin's death.

Instead of what truly happened, Hawke's mother does not speak of being proud, or of seeing her son Carver and her husband again. No, as Hawke cradles her, she tells her the worst things Hawke tells herself.] This was all your fault. First Carver and now me. You let them take Bethany, you destroyed our family. You destroyed Kirkwall. It should have been you. [She tenderly touches Hawke's face as tears fall down her face.] Everything would be better if you were never born.

4. Hawke Has Bad Taste In Men Dream - TW for murder and betrayal

[It starts out as something terrible but unfortunately very typical. Meredith and Orsino screaming at each other about Templars and Mages and Hawke just mostly being exhausted by it. All her companions are there too and she sighs, wondering when this is going to end, if ever. They're in a brightly lit coutyard and it seems like a deceptively nice day outside of the bickering.

Until Anders appears. Hawke turns to him when he arrives, and because this is a dream and not what truly happened, she speaks before he can.] Don't do it. Anders, Please. This time be different. This time. I love you, we can fix this. [She runs toward him but then the memory keeps playing and the Chantry explodes behind her, killing countless people. Hawke still doesn't know the number. Not from the explosion, not from the mayhem that came after. Perhaps she thinks if she heard the number she'd go mad.

The rest happens. Anders starts a war. Meredith threatens to murder all of the mages, Hawke has to stop her. These things move all around her as soldiers fight and die, and all she's left with is Anders. The others seem to disappear. He sits before her, back to her, and she puts a sword to his neck.]

I let you live, but I shouldn't have. [Tears coat her face as well as blood.] You broke me, you broke Kirkwall. This time I'll end you. [She makes as if to strike him, helpless and unarmed but more powerful than she'll ever be.]

***[OOC: Note that only difference in Anders scene is that Hawke does not say she would understand, she says 'that's a convenient excuse' but I could find no video that said that.]

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[Fighting is easy, fighting makes sense to her. This situation really doesn't otherwise, and Hawke tends to prefer feeling like she's in control of at least herself, if not the world around her. She is still buzzing with chaotic energy at the moment but she does feel a little better punching her problems away.

Flicking her bangs out of her eyes, she glances toward the woman. Right. People. Have to remember how to interact with people. She flashes one of her quick smiles.]

That's me. [Blue eyes give her a once-over and she snaps.] Oh I know you. Kyna, yeah? At the pub. And that little jaunt of ours out of the city. [Hawke has a very sharp memory.]

Yep, that's me. I'm kind of hard to forget.

[She says it jokingly, miming flipping her now nonexistent hair over her shoulder.]

And you're Fenris' friend, right? I mean, sort of. The female version?

[So smooth.]

[Hawke laughs at the gesture, easing some of her tension and stretching her arms as they talk. She can get tight in the shoulders after a fight.]

Confidence, I love that in a woman.

[It could be a flirt or it could just be that's how she smoothly chats with others, likely a harmless mix of both. One eyebrow raises and her gaze turns more curious.]

I'd say the better version, but he might disagree with me on that. I think I'm about twenty percent trashier, so, fair. [Self-mocking is one of her favorite hobbies.] Are you a new friend? [Very interested.] Fenris made a new friend?

[Confidence or bragging? Sometimes it's a fine line with Kyna. She tilts her head at the question, though, looking thrown by it.]

Um, yeah, we've been hanging out since we got here. Does he usually... not do that?

[Kyna thinks Fenris is charming, even if he can be intense.]

[Kyna has her full and undivided attention now, her own issues and aches at the moment thrown to the side.]

No, not at all. He was a real loner when we first met, although he's gotten better about it over the decade I've known him. Still, it was like taking a pick to a giant block of ice. Over years we chipped away until he let us into his life. [Her eyes soften, her smile returning and more genuinely warm now. Although there's some sadness underlining her expression.] It's worth it though. He's one of the best people I know.

[Kyna frowns at that, toying with her necklace.]

I've never thought of him as... icy.

[The opposite, actually. She and Fenris have had fights, but it always seems to come down to them being stubborn assholes in similar ways. But hey, ten years is a long time.]

I like him a lot, too.

[Maybe her voice softens a little when she says that. Maybe.]

You've really known him that long?

He was a different person in the start, although I suppose we all were.

[In some ways they all never changed, and in other ways they drastically were different. Hawke liked to think that having people at Fenris' back, supporting him even if they were a bit snarky about it, might have helped. She's fiercely protective of all of her friends.]

About that, yes. He's the most stubborn person I've ever met. I think a full year of that was me just irritating him into being my friend. [Hawke grins. She's looser now.] Though you could say that's because I'm the other most stubborn person.

[She tilts her head.] You like him, do you? [Uh oh, here comes a teasing glint.]

[Suddenly she'd rather die than have this conversation. Kyna shifts awkwardly.]

Yeah. Of course I do. He's awesome.

[That's it! Don't make her think about it!]

So you bullied him into being friends?

[Hawke's grin turns more playful. She is fairly easy to bounce around in emotions, and her mood leans toward joking and warm more often than not. Despite all of the darkness in her life, she finds a way to survive it through humor if nothing else.]

I've always seen him as a broody brother, but I have been told he's rather handsome by others. Would you agree?

[She's awful, sorry Kyna.]

I bully most people into being my friend. I don't know how people ordinarily make friends.

[Okay, new defense mechanism: Pretending this totally isn't a big deal and isn't making her squirmy at all.]

Duh. Look at him. And I haven't seen him being broody.

[Hawke laughs.] I'll have to tell Varric if I see him again that we have to change his nickname. He's been "Broody" to our beloved dwarf for the past decade. [Alright maybe not everyone considers Varric beloved, but he's Hawke's best friend in the world so she thinks everyone should love him.]

I have noticed him being a bit more open here. [She worries relentlessly, but she knows Fenris can take care of himself. She's just glad he didn't shut himself off.] He even volunteered for that trip, which of course meant I had to follow him around for once.

Yeah, he's been helping me out a lot.

[She can't speak to whether or not he's being more open, but surely that doesn't mean anything.]

Fenris didn't hate that nickname?

Hate it? Hm. [Hawke considers.] I don't think so, he usually makes the things he hates very clear and known. [Mages and magic, for example. The Tevinter Imperium.] The rest of us didn't use it, it's one of Varric's quirks.

[Hawke could use examples of times she'd found Fenris brooding around that mansion for days at a time, but she is careful not to give too much up. Fenris is a private person and if he wants to tell Kyna about the things he got up to, he will. Hawke knows which things are fair game.]

He's been helping you out how?

[Yeah, that's true. Fenris isn't really one to mince words to be polite.]

Um, you know, just... getting used to being here? Hanging out? He's been letting me crash at his place.

[Hawke nods slowly, intrigued and having a few ideas of her own, glancing to the bartender and waving for a new drink. ]

He has a soft spot for people who are a little lost, and I think we all are lost in this place. Cut off from what we know, who we were, with no idea of how to return to where we belong.

[Fenris has a soft spot for people who need help, but she isn't going to assume Kyna's one of them. At this point it seems like a sense of camaraderie. All of them in the same situation. It's a more confusing version of Kirkwall, where at least they really did all know what they were doing.]

That used to be our thing, helping people, albeit sometimes helping people by stabbing other people.

[Kyna isn't sure she... likes that idea, the thought of Fenris helping he because she seems "lost". Her body language closes off a bit, arms crossing over her chest instinctively. She's 99% sure that it isn't the reason for Fenris' attention, but that 1% Hawke has just introduced nags at her. And even if Fenris doesn't feel that way, she doesn't like that Hawke is saying it.]

I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself.

I didn't mean helpless or in need of protection.

[Hawke shrugs, taking a sip. She doesn't mind clarifying. She's a very honest and direct person, as long as it doesn't include anything that exposes her own vulnerability.]

You've seen I'm hardly helpless myself. [She gestures toward the ring.] But he's helped me by being my friend, by making me better for it. That's what I mean. We were all very alone, once upon a time. [She's still very alone, but it's not about her.] And I'm glad he isn't alone now.

Edited 2020-03-09 19:52 (UTC)

[Kyna doesn't know how to take... any of this. This is rapidly approaching the sort of conversation she loathes having, even with friends. The truth is, without her magic she does feel helpless.

So, it's time to deflect this back to Hawke.]

He has you, too.

[Hawke is much better at speaking to other people about their things than her own, so she understands that all too well, and it's not her intention to make things awkward. It's actually the last thing she wants; then she'll lack someone interesting to talk to. She sees the deflection for what it is, master of it herself, and smiles wryly.]

He does, yeah, but I'm not the Hawke he knows. It's an adjustment. Like the rest of this bloody place.

[An adjustment she actively hates because she really thought her friends would always have her back, but she can't expect that of someone who doesn't recognize her. It's complicated but sometimes it really, really sucks.]

Are you from a time like ours? Before technology and the like?

Nope. I mean, we don't have brain implants, but...

[She's not jumping from swords and horses to lasers and hoverbikes. But back to Fenris.]

Maybe you should just... I don't know. Act like you're trying to get to know him again.

I don't even know how the brain thing works. I think it's better not to try. [It'll give her a headache.] I do like the easy information though. Less having to go around asking people what they're doing all the time. [She always hated that part. Walking through the streets as the Champion. Constantly feeling like an imposter.

It's not bad advice and she sighs.] I never thought I'd be in competition with myself, but it's a bit funny, to be honest. One of the first things I asked was if he's more attractive than I am, and I never got an answer. Terribly rude.

It just goes to show how much of her humor is ways to hide when something stabs her right through the damned gut.] So where are you from, then?

[Kyna uses humor the same way, so she sees right through it. And usually she'd just let it go—they're total strangers, after all—but she cares about Fenris, so she can't.]

You're not in competition with yourself. If you think that you're just going to make it super uncomfortable.

[She pauses, wrinkling her nose. It's true that Hawke might know Fenris better than she does, but Kyna also thinks she and Fenris have... similar hangups. So...]

It's probably weird for him that you know all these details and secrets about him, and he's kind of starting over with you. Like... Unbalanced, you know?

[Competition is her off-hand way of referring to it, but she often is hard on herself. How she fails, how she could do better, be better, and always comes up short no matter the fact she does, generally, try. In her head the Hawke he knows is somehow that better version of herself, and it's all her own hang-ups, but the more she's reminded he doesn't know her, the more she reminds herself it's probably for the best.

It's a strange set of emotions that she'd never put on a stranger's shoulders. Or anyone else, for that matter. Her only real confidante has been Varric ... and Anders, once upon a time. Not a great track record.]

Oh you're absolutely right about that, I know too much, but I'm different. I'm not a mage, for example, which to him matters even more than not being a man I'd say. [She's glad though, to know that Fenris would not let that get in the way of his friendship with any version of her. He's too good of a person to do that.] I just hope it doesn't take a few years. Not that I wouldn't put in another ten.

[Kyna frowns at that. It's hard for her to know what to say when her experience of Fenris has been... different than Hawke's.]

I'm a mage.

[Not that they haven't had a billion arguments about how dangerous magic is, but whatever.]

And why would it take years?

[Hawke's surprise is evident but it smooths over into a smile.] I suppose that's the upside to having more mage friends. I'm glad to hear that. [It does make her think though and she sips her drink, considering.]

You're definitely right, I think. We might both need to start over and get to know one another. It probably wasn't wise to assume we could just be as we always have been. [It isn't an easy prospect for her, when someone is very familiar, and yet she's not. But it's not as if her sheer stubbornness hasn't eventually won out in the end. The question is whether or not he wants to try, when he has his own Hawke and under no obligation to her.]

I have noticed you aren't talking about yourself at all, though. What about your world? And you're a mage? What kind? My sister's one.

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Do I look like the leader of this merry band of misfits?

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